We All Lose Out on Great Media When Racial and Sexual Diversity Is Lacking

Here at Ladydrawers HQ, we know that gendered barriers to media access affect everyone: women, trans, and non-binary gender creators lose out financially, and guys get stuck reading the same old points of view filtered through characters created by the same pool of creators, every month. Of course, it's not just gender diversity that's lacking in comics. The same thing can be said for racial and sexual diversity: we all lose out on great media when it's mostly made by straight white dudes. Even straight white dudes know it!

So we invited our first dude, Justin Hall, to illustrate this strip. It looks at who is keeping comics from exploring the racial, sexual, and gender diversity we know exists in the world. Because although we saw in our very first strip that publishers aren't hiring women and trans creators, it also turns out that the most diverse comics come from the most corporate publishers. We're as shocked as you are!

Anne Elizabeth Moore is a cultural critic and author of several award-winning, best-selling nonfiction books including Unmarketable (The New Press) and Cambodian Grrrl (Cantankerous Titles). She has held Fulbright scholarships and was a USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellow. Her work has appeared in The Baffler, Al Jazeera, Salon, The Onion, Talking Points Memo, Wilson Quarterly, Tin House, and in international art exhibitions including the Whitney Biennial and solo shows at the MCA Chicago. She has appeared on CNN, NPR, and in The New York Times, among others, and currently lives in Chicago.

Justin Hall is an award-winning cartoonist and the creator of Glamazonia, True Travel Tales, and Hard To Swallow, as well as contributions to publications such as the Houghton Miflin Best American Comics 2006, Book of Boy Trouble, and the S.F. Bay Guardian. He recently compiled and edited No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics for Fantagraphics Books. He teaches cartooning at the California College of the Arts, and is on the board of Prism Comics, a non-profit supporting LGBT comics. www.justinhallcomics.com

We All Lose Out on Great Media When Racial and Sexual Diversity Is Lacking

Here at Ladydrawers HQ, we know that gendered barriers to media access affect everyone: women, trans, and non-binary gender creators lose out financially, and guys get stuck reading the same old points of view filtered through characters created by the same pool of creators, every month. Of course, it's not just gender diversity that's lacking in comics. The same thing can be said for racial and sexual diversity: we all lose out on great media when it's mostly made by straight white dudes. Even straight white dudes know it!

So we invited our first dude, Justin Hall, to illustrate this strip. It looks at who is keeping comics from exploring the racial, sexual, and gender diversity we know exists in the world. Because although we saw in our very first strip that publishers aren't hiring women and trans creators, it also turns out that the most diverse comics come from the most corporate publishers. We're as shocked as you are!

Anne Elizabeth Moore is a cultural critic and author of several award-winning, best-selling nonfiction books including Unmarketable (The New Press) and Cambodian Grrrl (Cantankerous Titles). She has held Fulbright scholarships and was a USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellow. Her work has appeared in The Baffler, Al Jazeera, Salon, The Onion, Talking Points Memo, Wilson Quarterly, Tin House, and in international art exhibitions including the Whitney Biennial and solo shows at the MCA Chicago. She has appeared on CNN, NPR, and in The New York Times, among others, and currently lives in Chicago.

Justin Hall is an award-winning cartoonist and the creator of Glamazonia, True Travel Tales, and Hard To Swallow, as well as contributions to publications such as the Houghton Miflin Best American Comics 2006, Book of Boy Trouble, and the S.F. Bay Guardian. He recently compiled and edited No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics for Fantagraphics Books. He teaches cartooning at the California College of the Arts, and is on the board of Prism Comics, a non-profit supporting LGBT comics. www.justinhallcomics.com